What metrics actually show paid social builds brand equity?

[Dennis.T]

I’m trying to figure out if our paid social ads are actually building any real brand equity or if we’re just buying cheap clicks that don’t stick. We see decent engagement rates, but our brand surveys show no improvement in recognition or loyalty, which makes me wonder if the spend is just chasing short-term metrics.

[AuroraJ]

We ran a brand lift test alongside paid social last quarter. Engagement looked solid, but aided recall barely moved and loyalty metrics stayed flat. It feels like we’re getting clicks that don’t turn into memory.

[Emily.B]

It might be the measurement setup. Surveys can be noisy and the horizon matters. If we’re chasing CTR and reach, the long game of brand memory may take longer, or the questions aren’t capturing the journey. I’ve seen campaigns that looked good in metrics but nothing in perception.

[Donald.T]

Action taken: we did a two week holdout in two regions to isolate paid social and tracked unaided recall and assisted conversions. The signal was inconsistent across markets and faded after the holdout ended. It didn’t give a clear path, so we didn’t roll it out everywhere.

[GraceOM]

One question: is the real bottleneck the attribution window or the creative resonance with the audience, and how are you untangling that in your tests?